Prompted by a suspicious reader, Nau.ch reveals that multiple private radio stations are experimenting with AI-generated songs to fill their night programs. Radio 1, Grischa, and Zürisee are all experimenting with artificial, royalty-free music to save costs. The public broadcaster SRF and the publisher CH Media are not using any AI-generated music.
It is noteworthy that some radio stations have previously used royalty-free music at night as a cost-saving measure. So, it was only a question of time until they would unleash AI-generated music on the ether.
However, as the Swiss royalty society SUISA points out, AI music models have primarily been trained on copyrighted data without artists’ consent. Therefore, there remains a significant risk of copyright infringement if the model outputs a track that is sufficiently similar to an existing, human-created work.
These so-called experiments by private radio stations are yet another slap in the face for local and international musicians. Even if the artificially generated music is currently only played during low-listening times and private radio stations already do far too little for local music, it still feels like a taboo has been broken.
Revenue from radio plays is essential, primarily since streaming barely covers the cost of a coffee in Zurich and ticket sales are becoming increasingly sluggish. It is potentially another source of income for musicians that is melting away like the Arctic ice floes.
Of course, media companies have also been in a massive structural crisis for years. Cost pressure is enormous, and jobs are being cut every year. And yet, radio is still the channel that is closely linked to music at its core. A medium that should actually celebrate music.
But years of devaluation due to the constant, virtually free availability of all music, combined with the media’s economic situation, are causing this appreciative relationship between music and radio to fade. Radio, the unrivalled background medium, is becoming even more irrelevant as AI-generated music becomes more prevalent.
And now would actually be the time to apply political pressure. Licensed radio stations should be prohibited from playing AI-generated music.
